Walk to Bothan Sròn Smearasmal

At 11 am, Saturday, July 12, I will lead a walk to the beehive shielings of Bothan Sròn Smearasmal (North Harris). There are over a hundred beehive shielings on Lewis and Harris, but only a handful retain their beautiful, corbelled domes. The central cell at Sròn Smearasmal is one of the best examples with an intact dome.

The Smearasmal cells are important in the history of corbelled shielings, as they were the first ones that Captain FWL Thomas documented in the 1850s. Captain Thomas (Royal Navy) performed hydrographic surveys of the west coast of Lewis and Harris. His duties provided opportunities for exploration ashore, and after hearing of a circular stone hut near the head of Loch Mhiabhaig, he decided to find it. He failed on the first attempt but found it on his second. That started his subsequent journeys to, and published descriptions of, the cells of Lewis and Harris.

The round-trip distance is about 4 km and involves a climb of 140 metres (450 ft) over rough, trackless, and sometimes steep terrain. Please have appropriate footwear and water. The walk will begin at the parking area on the road to Huisinis at the start of the track to Loch Bhoisimid.

For more information, see the following page on the Islands Book Trust Website:

https://islandsbooktrust.org/pages/events-1

Hebridean Healers - Crois an Ollaimh - Mull

It is always depressing to leave Iona. I needed something to cheer me up, so as we drove east across the Ross, I looked at my tattered OS Landranger Map 48 for inspiration. There were several inspiring notes I’d made on it over the years. One read: ‘Quarry used in Skerryvore’. The note pointed to Camus Tuath, a bay on the Ross between Iona and Bunessen, where the granite used in the Skerryvore light was quarried. To get to it required a two-mile round-trip walk. That would take at least two hours. We had a ferry to catch, so the quarry had to wait another time.

Another note on the map read: ‘Ardtun—leaf beds and like Giant’s Causeway.’ It is at Ardtun that you’ll find fascinating basalt pillars, exposed lava tubes, and fossil beds. But, like the quarry at Camus Tuath, seeing Ardtun would require a couple of hours. So far, my search for easy inspiration has failed. Then, as we neared the head of Loch Scridan, I noticed a two-word note on the map that read: ‘To Beatons’. An arrow next to the note pointed to one of those not very informative but still enticing, one-word notations the OS uses to mark historic sites. The word, printed in an ancient-looking Celtic font, was ‘Cross.’ 

And so we parked at a layby near Pennycross Farm (NM 5065 2619). That placed us 200 feet south of the cross. It was a difficult 200 feet. At the start, I had to jump across the slow-moving waters of Allt Ruaidh. From there, it was a slow walk across rocky terrain hidden under grass and heather. The cross was enclosed by a spiked iron fence, like those that guard the tombstones of the well-to-do or famous. JP MacLean describes the cross in History of the Island of Mull (1923):

This cross is rudely cut out of a block of slate, not belonging to the island. It is fixed by a well-cut mortice into a square block of Gribun sandstone, which rests on a pyramidal pile of basalt blocks from the immediate vicinity. There is a tradition that it was erected to the memory of one of the famous Beatons, that family being noted for success in the healing art. This belief probably owes its origin to the letters on the stone.

The cross, which may date to the eighth century, is named on some maps as Crois an Ollaimh, the cross of the doctor and is made of Moine granulite, not slate. Due to weathering and the continual erosion of a crusty, grey lichen, the letters on it were barely visible. A drawing in TS Muir’s Ecclesiological Notes on some of the Islands of Scotland records the inscription as 'GMB 1582 DMB.' According to the RCAHMS Inventory (Argyll Vol. 3, Item 319): ‘It seems probable that the initials stand for Gille-Coluim [Malcolm] MacBethadh and his son Domnall, members of the Beaton family who, before the 17th century, used the surnames MacBethadh and Mac an Ollaimh indiscriminately.’

As for why a memorial to the Beatons was placed at Pennycross, a half mile from Pennygael, a return to the well of information in MacLean’s History of the Island of Mull reveals the following:

John, the most celebrated of that race (the Beatons) lived at Pennyghael in Mull. Near his residence he had a botanical garden where he raised many different kinds of plants, with which he experimented, using such tests as should indicate what effect would result when administered for various diseases. It is probable that to this garden may be traced many exotic plants that long continued to be used for curative and other purposes. 

The Beatons had the farm of Pennycross, and their home was on the old road near NM 50715 26057, some 500 feet southeast of where I’d parked. (Neither the house nor the road exists today.) The Beatons were famed for the use of healing plants. Their half-acre botanical/physic garden was sited within a three-sided enclosure shown on the 1880 OS Map centred at NM 5073 2610. Their vast herbal pharmacopoeia included wormwood for intestinal parasites, fennel for vision difficulties, foxglove for heart problems, rosemary for improving memory, St John’s Wort for depression, and thyme for respiratory diseases.

The Beaton name evolved from MacBethadh/MacBetha/MacBeth. They were physicians to the Lords of the Isles for over three centuries, and to quote from the book Hebridean Healers: The Beatons of Mull: ‘They were well educated at leading European medical universities and combined this knowledge with their herbal lore to effect successful cures, which earned great renown.’ In addition to Mull, there were Beaton doctors on Islay, Bute, Colonsay, Uist, and Skye. TS Muir mentioned the various branches of the Beatons in Characteristics of Old Church Architecture in the Mainland & Western Islands of Scotland (1861). His description includes the following about Neil Beaton of Skye.

Of this lot of Beatons, Neil seems to have been the most celebrated, and so prompt and potent were his cures, particularly of "Running-sores, grievous Headaches, Coughs, and pains in the Belly," that patients flocked to him from all places, ever so distant, for the benefit of his vegetable juices, extracted from "Plants and Roots after a Chymical way, peculiar to himself" or rather, as was quietly surmised, to the devil, from whom, for a consideration, payable at a certain date, he had been favoured with the Recipe.

It was not only the Lords of the Isles that employed the Beatons. A Patrick MacBeth was physician to Robert the Bruce, and Beaton doctors attended the Kings of Scotland from The Bruce on through the reign of James VI, James VII/II, and Charles I.

The Beatons became firmly established on Mull when MacLean of Duart awarded the farm of Pennycross to Andrew Beaton, the first Ollamhan Muileach, in 1572. Their Pennycross physic garden was probably established at the same time. Sixteen years later, Andrew was succeeded as Ollamhan Muileach by his son Malcolm, whose initials are on the cross. In 1588, Malcolm was aboard the Spanish Galleon San Juan de Sicilia (sometimes referred to as the Florencia or Florida) when it was blown up in Tobermory Bay. He was one of the few survivors of this bit of sabotage and was “blowen on the shoaare with the upper decke”.

Malcolm’s son Domhall succeeded his father as Ollamhan Muileach. The next in line was Domhall’s son John. Born in 1594, John was the fourth and last Ollamhan Muileach. When he died in 1657, John was buried on Iona, where an elaborate tombstone was erected by his grandson Donald in 1674. The Beatons were mostly gone from Pennycross when MacLean repossessed the farm in 1719.

My wife was patiently waiting in the car, so I did not linger at the cross. Even though it was a short visit, my post-Iona depression had lifted. The Beatons cured me: I’d not ingested any St John’s Wort, but I had inhaled the sweet sea air of Port Bìrlinne. As the name implies, this was once a landing place for those crossing the loch to Tiroran or arriving on the Ross to seek help from An t-Ollamhan Muileach. Birlinns no longer ply these waters, and although it was a good day for sailing, no boats were to be seen. It was also a good day for walking. A sea breeze kept the midges away and masked the sound of the occasional car passing on the highway.

* * *

These days, a walk to Crois an Ollaimh is much easier; a plank bridge crosses the stream, and a path leads to the cross. But I am glad it was a bit of a struggle when I went there on a grey day in 1992. It was my early years of island trekking, and that short but challenging walk inspired many more to come. For the history of the Beatons and their physic garden, see Hebridean Healers: The Beatons of Mull, by Christine Leach, Andrea Cameron, Miek Zwamborn, and Elizabeth Carter (Origin, 2024).  

Hylle-fjell—Hallival—The Mountain of Ledges—Rùm

In May I will be staying the better part of a week on Rùm. Over the past decade, I've made several day trips to the island, but it's been 25 years since I've stayed there. My wife and I spent a week in 1997 and again in 2000. On both occasions, we had accommodations on the top floor of Kinloch Castle. Those rooms have not been used for 20 years, as the castle is fenced off and mouldering away. In going through my journals from back then, I realised I'd not written much about one of the walks I made in 2000.

* * *

It was June of 2000, and my wife and I had walked the five miles to Kilmory at the north tip of Rùm. In the Kilmory burial ground lies an ancient, cross-carved pillar stone I wanted to see. There is also another stone, one that marks the grave of the Matheson children. Murdoch Matheson had been the Kilmory shepherd from 1855 to 1875. As of September 7, 1873, the Mathesons had eleven children. Over the next three days, they lost five to diphtheria. Grief-stricken, they emigrated to New Zealand. The children’s tombstone, inscribed with all those young names, is a grim reminder of island life a century ago. 

But, when we reached Kilmory, we were told we could not enter the burial ground. A hind was about to give birth, and a battalion of walkie-talkie and binocular-toting naturalists monitored the blessed event as if it was a virgin birth. There was still a lot of daylight left, so when we returned to the cross-island track, I abandoned my wife (something she’s used to). If I hurried, there was just enough time before dark to get high. The mantled peak of Hallival was calling.

Getting to Hallival required climbing into Corrie Dubh, the Dark Corrie. It was an easy walk at first, along the banks of Allt Slugan a’ Choilich to the dam and powerhouse that supply electricity to the castle. Then the path left the forest, which was good and bad—I was baking in the sun, but there were no midges. Over the next half mile, the path climbed 600 feet to another dam. There was no rest for the weary on this damn path. It insisted on continuing its relentless ascent to yet another dam at the 900-foot level.

I was now in Corrie Dubh, where the headwaters of Allt Slugan a’ Choilich come together. The terrain near here was the site of some botanical skulduggery a half-century before. It was where Professor John Heslop Harrison of Newcastle University was accused of planting Carex Bicolor, a species of sedge never before seen in Britain.

The professor wanted to prove a theory that some plants and insects survived the last Ice Age in Britain. To do this required two things. The first was to go to a place that had remained ice-free throughout the last Ice Age. Mountain tops above ice fields are known as nunataks; Hallival is one example. The second thing Harrison needed to do was find species in such a location that did not exist nearby, meaning they could not have naturally spread there after the ice receded. One such candidate was Carex Bicolor, a perennial sedge that grows to a height of five inches and is not native to Britain.

The Professor was fortunate to be allowed access to Rùm. This was during the 1940s and 50s, when it was known as The Forbidden Island, and you needed permission to land. The professor was acquainted with the Bulloughs, who allowed him to lodge in the castle. That made Rùm, in a sense, his own private island for botanical research.

Karl Sabbagh’s A Rum Affair, published in 1999, tells the story of John Raven, a classical scholar and amateur botanist, who investigated the suspected planting of alien species on Rùm (and elsewhere) by Professor Harrison. As the following extract from John Raven by His Friends (privately published after his death) shows, Raven was the ideal person to investigate the allegations.

Anyone who boatanized with John on mountains soon came to realise that he had an instinct for a ‘good’ site and would often go unerringly to the place where the rare plant was going. This was partly because he used, almost subconsciously, signs of ‘indicator species’—commoner mountain plants which were sufficiently choosy about where they grew to mark off the site as worth searching for the real rarities—but also, one had to admit, he seemed to have an inexplicable skill in prediction. When this was combined, as it so often was, with his capacity for very painstaking detective work, the combination was very powerful indeed.

John Raven passed away in 1980. His obituary included the following: In 1954 he was at the centre of a curious episode. A reputable biologist had recorded finding, on the isle of Rum, several plants not previously found in Britain. The botanical world was surprised, not to say suspicious, John went to investigate. His report was deposited in the Trinity College Library and has never been published.

To quote from A Rum Affair: At the heart of [Raven’s] report was an accusation that Professor John Heslop Harrison of Newcastle University had, at some time in the 1940s, transported alien plants to the island of Rum and planted them himself in the soil. He had then, Raven alleged, “discovered” the plants and claimed that they were indigenous to the area and that he was the first to come across them.

Raven would go on to co-author the classic Mountain Flowers, published by Collins in 1956, and to write A Botanist’s Garden in 1971. Although A Rum Affair was published the year before my walk, I had not read it. And so, as I passed through Corrie Dubh, I had no idea it played a starring role in the affair. Even if I had known, I was exhausted and would not have gone ‘off piste’ to search for where a professor surreptitiously planted sedges. I was intent on summiting Hallival, the mountain of ledges.

From the head of Corie Dubh, the path ascended another 600 feet to Bealach Bairc-mheall. Climbers have a choice here. A turn to the right led to the summit of Barkeval, while a left turn was the start of the Cuillin Traverse, a ten-hour excursion starting with Hallival that bags seven peaks. The summit of Hallival was a mile away, and the final ascent required climbing a giant staircase of gabbro ledges.

Many of the ledges were carpeted with grassy tufts known as shearwater greens, fertilised by the copious quantity of guano produced by the Manx shearwaters that nest there.

The rocky mantle was a vertical maze, a puzzle that needed to be solved to reach the top. The sun had been relentless all day, and after hiking over a dozen miles, I was baked, burned, and running out of steam. But the exhaustion evaporated as, with a shout of joy, I boosted myself over the final ledge. The triangular plateau looked like an altar to the sky. The views were spectacular and vastly different from 250 centuries ago when the summit was an island in a sea of ice. As all that ice receded, it left behind something beautiful.

To the north, the forest enveloping the castle created a green oasis at the heart of Kinloch Glen, backed by the Cuillins of Skye on the far horizon. 

The view south was as inspiring, where the knife ridge to Askival tempted further wanderings. To attain its summit would require dropping 400 feet to the saddle, then ascending 700 feet to Askival’s airy top. Another temptation was to spend the night on the ledges of Hallival to witness the shearwaters’ return. I had to resist both. It was getting late, and the wife would worry if I was not back before dark.

* * *

Later that evening, Clive Hollingworth, the castle manager, offered us a tour. One stop was Monica Bullough’s ornate bathroom, with its over-the-top shower: spigots and sprays that can reach every hidden nook and cranny. It surpassed any of the ‘Rainforest Showers’ in upscale hotels. Then, after a visit to the Main Hall, Clive led us to a closet that housed the orchestrion. Built in 1900, it was produced by Imhof and Mukle, a company based in the Black Forest. It was one of the largest orchestrions made and was driven by a wooden roll with eighty-eight tracks for notes and twenty-two tracks for organ registers and percussion. The sound blasted from 264 pipes, with registers that produced clarinet, piccolo, flute, trumpet, and trombone sounds. The bellows were powered up, which blew air into an intricate mechanism that ran the keys and percussion controls. The resulting symphony was astonishing. It echoed through the Great Hall, echoing the extravagant sounds of a privileged past.

The next stop was the ballroom, which Clive called the ‘orgy room.’ It had worn silk wall hangings that once provided an erotic ambience, amplified by a constellation of stars on the ceiling. When the lights were dimmed, they gave the party-goers the feeling they were out under the stars. It was the perfect place for free love. The windows were high on the walls so no one could spy on the merrymakers. And if those merry-makers were thirsty, a revolving bar prevented the help from seeing the goings-on. If the Rùmachs want to revitalise their economy, they should consider restoring the orgy room and offering it out for nightly rentals.

Eorsa

Eorsa lay like a scallop-shell on the fringe of the western sea, its concave face opening to the wide ocean, the sunset, and the strung jet beading that was the line of the Outer Hebrides. 

The view from a fictional Eorsa — the novel Bridal Path, Nigel Tranter (1952)

Unlike Tranter's fictional Eorsa, the real Eorsa lies two miles east of Ulva, at the mouth of Loch na Keal. It is not a usual destination of choice on a Hebridean cruise. There are no legends or tales about it to entice a visit. There are no recorded massacres, no monks slain on blood-soaked beaches, or innocent families smothered in its cave. Neither are there any substantial ruins or challenging cliffs that might tempt a passing island bagger to its shores. The following photo is of Eorsa seen from the north. In the distance, you can see Ben More erupting—or maybe it's just a cloud.

Eorsa is a hump of an island—and a Hump it almost is. As defined by those who feel a need to categorise hills, a Hump is a HUndred Metre Prominence. At 99 metres, Eorsa just misses the mark. It is a roughly oval-shaped island, a mile long and a half mile wide. It acts as a barrier plug, a bulwark sheltering the inner reaches of Loch na Keal, a popular anchorage for the navy in WWI. The next photo is from Eorsa looking up Loch na Keal, with the ship Hjalmar Bjorge at anchor.

It seems odd that little Eorsa, near the monasteries of Inchkenneth and Iona, has no recorded early Christian ruins. The only ruins mentioned by CANMORE are two shielings, a kiln, and a building on what is now the site of a wooden shepherd’s bothy (NM 4884 3797). 

Eorsa has a place in Scottish fiction, sort of. In 1952, Nigel Tranter used it as the name of the island in his novel The Bridal Path—which was made into a movie in 1959 starring Bill Travers. The book tells the story of Ewen MacEwen, a widower with two children, living on the fictional Eorsa, which Tranter placed near the Small Isles. Ewen wanted to find a wife but was related to almost everyone on the island. He was encouraged to seek a mate on the mainland, and his week-long adventure begins in Oban. The novel is a good read as we go along for the ride with Ewen, who is mistaken for a salmon poacher and a sex trafficker. He is arrested, and after escaping from custody, walks from Fort William to Glenfinnan and then rows a boat to Eorsa via Muck and another fictional island, the dreaded Erismore.

The subject of inbreeding in a small community was a sensitive one. Tranter may have chosen Eorsa for the name of his fictional island because the real one was never home to a community. I began this post with a quote from the novel describing the view of the Outer Hebrides from Tranter’s Eorsa, one not seen from the real Eorsa.

* * *

It was the spring of 2018. I was guiding a cruise on Hjalmar Bjorge, and we’d spent the morning on Erraid, an island I knew well. But I had to fake it as I led the group across Eorsa, an island I’d never been to. Fortunately, it was small, and nobody could get lost. 

We'd been set ashore on the rocky beach of a small bay at the east tip of the island, from where we started along a sheep track that led to the shepherd’s bothy. It was obvious that there had been something much older here. Several piles of stones hinted at collapsed structures, and a series of stone walls were a clue that earlier structures had been cannibalised to build them. Aerial photos of the site clearly show that they lie inside a circular path of green turf, about 130 feet in diameter, with the foundation of several other structures evident. It has the distinct look of a Christian Cashel.

It was late spring, and the thick bracken made seeing the ground around the ruins impossible. Also making it hard to explore were lengths of rusting fence wire strung atop the walls. Had these mounds of stone been beehive cells? Was there a monastic settlement here, a training ground for young monks from Iona to try their hand at isolation? There is no record of a monastic site on Eorsa, but it once belonged to the Priory of Iona. If not a monastery, perhaps it was a granary, as fields of lazy beds are scattered about the island. The next photo is of Ulva Ferry seen from near the summit of Eorsa.

We continued along the sheep track, which climbs across the hummocky terrain for a half mile to the cairned summit. Eorsa is said to be swarming with adders, but none were encountered as we made the gradual ascent to the high point. The summit was surveyed at 99 metres. The small cairn atop it was just a metre high, perhaps built to qualify Eorsa as a genuine, no-doubt-about-it, certifiable 100 metre Hump. The view westward from the cairn made the climb worthwhile. To the right, the basaltic pillars of the Ulva Castles were lit to an orange hue. To the left, low-lying Inchkenneth lay below the high, buttress cliffs of Gribun, which rise a thousand feet above the sea.

To blatantly paraphrase the quote from Nigel Tranter used above: Eorsa lay like a limpet shell at the mouth of Loch na Keal, its rounded summit opening to the Sea of the Hebrides, collonaded Staffa, and the hallowed shores of Inchkenneth and Iona.

Easdale of the Slate Isles

Easdale was a significant milestone, as it was the final island on my final cruise as a guide on Hjalmar Bjørge. We'd spent the morning on na h-EiIeacha Naomha of the Garvellachs. Upon learning none of the guests had been to Easdale, I decided to make it the last island of the cruise.

And so, on a scorching hot, cloudless September afternoon, Skipper Tony motored Hjalmar Bjørge to an anchorage near the east entrance of the Sound of Easdale. We loaded into the inflatable and set off to the Easdale slipway. The slipway lies atop a slate-shard beach, and we had to get ashore quickly as the island ferry was fast approaching with a full load of passengers.

With seven quarries, some reaching 300 ft below sea level, Easdale had been the centre of the slate industry. As described by Patrick Gillies in Netherlorn, Argyllshire and its Neighbourhood, the island was severely damaged during a storm in 1881.

The working of this quarry came to a sudden and disastrous end. In the early morning of the 22nd November 1881, after a very severe gale of south-west wind followed by an exceptionally high tide, a large rocky buttress which supported a sea wall gave way under the excessive pressure of water, and at daybreak the quarry, which had been wrought to a depth of 250 feet below tide level, was found flooded, and two hundred and forty men and boys were thrown out of employment. Since then Easdale has not been prosperous. Lately, however, some of the old workings, abandoned about a century ago on account of the then inadequate machinery, have been reopened, and with sufficient capital and cautious management it is to be hoped that a long period of prosperity may ensue.

The slate works on Easdale ceased in 1911. Other quarries continued to operate for a few years. But, unable to compete with cheaper, imported slates and the use of clay tiles, they, too, became a thing of the past.

We were a bit thirsty - well, I was, anyway - so we went in search of The Puffer, the island cafe/pub. We found it thanks to this helpful sign, which also told us that Sydney was only 11,275 miles away. 

After refreshments, we walked the island paths before visiting the excellent museum, where there were as many ‘No Photography’ signs as there were displays. I was sorely tempted but refrained from taking photos of the 'No Photos' signs. 

The island was quiet as we walked the paths along the flooded quarries. The largest quarry, at the southeast corner of the island (pictured below), is where slate skimming competitions are held every year.

Fortunately for us, the skimming competition had taken place two weeks before. Nearly a thousand people would have been here, many of them clustered around this flooded quarry. Skimmers must launch from a rectangular slab of slate lying at the north end of the pond. We each stood on the slab and gave it a try. My attempts were pitiful. I blame it on the fact that there were no good skimming slates near the launch point. The area had been picked clean, and all the good stones lay at the bottom of the pond.

Each contestant must use Easdale slates no larger than three inches in diameter. They get three tries to see how far they can skim, and the stone has to bounce at least twice. The point where it sinks is deemed the length of the skim. The flooded quarry used for the competition is square, about 200 feet on a side (63 metres). If the skimmer hits the quarry’s far wall, they are given a score of 63 metres. The winner in 2024 skipped a total of 155 metres over three tries (a perfect score would be 189).

Later that evening, as Easdale disappeared astern, we set a course to Loch Spelve on Mull. An overnight anchorage at Spelve allows for a quick sail to Oban in the morning. And we needed to be quick. It would be a Friday, and the pontoons fill up fast on weekends. All the tour boats have to make a mad dash to Oban if they hope to secure a parking spot.

That Friday happened to be the last day of summer. As I carried my gear up the marina ramp to the busy streets of Oban, I thought back to a spring day eight years before, when I’d set out from Oban on my first guide trip. I also recalled a summer’s day in 2004 when I’d set out on my first cruise as a guest on Hjalmar Bjørge with skipper Mark Henrys. Over those twenty years of magic, I’ve been aboard her for fourteen cruises, spending over 140 nights in her snug bunks. I want to thank Debbie, Sally, Skipper Tony Morrison, Deckhand/Steward Colin McKinnon, Chef Steve Milne, and owner David Lambie for making the 2024 cruise memorable.

Na h-Eileacha Naomha of the Isles of the Sea

After exploring Inchkenneth, we set a course to na h-Eileacha Naomha, one of the Garvellachs, also known as The Isles of the Sea. On the island are the ruins of St Brendan's Monastery, which include two of the largest beehive cells in the Hebrides. The island is unusual in that it has four names: na h-Eileacha Naomha, Eileach an Naoimh, Aileach, and, to some, Hinba.

It's a tricky approach to get near the island. A series of black reefs known as Sgeirean Dubha guard the east side, so you must carefully motor around the south tip of the reefs before heading to the anchorage off the small inlet below the monastic ruins. The tide was high enough so that Colin, skippering the RIB, could set the three of us ashore near the head of the inlet.

Once ashore, I led Sally and Debbie up past St Columba's Well, a welcome sight for sea kayakers running low on fresh water.

The first stop on any tour is the island’s oldest ruin, a seventh-century double beehive cell. The corbelled stone roofs have collapsed, and the cells were altered for sheep pens at some point. These are the most massive beehives in Scotland, a dozen feet in diameter, with three-foot thick walls that once would have looked like the intact cloghauns on Sceilg Mhichil of Star Wars fame.

Just below the cells is an odd pillar about twelve feet high. Its top end overhangs to one side, creating a sheltered spot. It is a perfect preaching place that has come to be known as St Columba's Pulpit. We took turns preaching, but other than soaring seabirds, there was no one to appreciate our sermons.

From the pulpit, we climbed the ridge to the monastery. The most interesting ruin is an underground beehive cell, where we took turns sliding feet first into the small space. Patrick Gillies describes the cell in Netherlorn, Argyllshire and its Neighbourhood (1909):

Close to the chapel is an underground cell called Am Priosan, and tradition tells very circumstantially the mode of confining prisoners. There was a large stone in the bottom of the cell with a V-shaped depression; the prisoner placed his clasped hands in the hollow, and a wedge-shaped stone was securely fastened down over the palms of the hands, and so tightly that it was impossible to extricate them: the whole arrangement was called, a' ghlas laimh (the hand-lock). Probably, however, the underground cavity was a well, or maybe a cellar for storing the ‘elements.' 

In The Isles and the Gospel (1907), Hugh MacMillan describes a somewhat horrific way punishment was inflicted on the guilty miscreant. The cell can fill with water when it rains, and MacMillan speculates about a ‘curious custom’ of the Columban Church, where if a monk was guilty of a ‘grave offence’ he was required to seclude himself, and that:

Another punishment often inflicted for light offences was the recitation of the whole or part of the Psalter, with the body entirely immersed in water. This penance may have been carried out in the curious underground cell near the oratory, which, as I have said, is often half-filled with water during rainy weather. I was informed by some of the old people at Easdale that thirty or forty years ago, a curious stone was found near these beehive cells with a narrow aperture in it, which was used in the administration of justice. The accused was required to put his hand through it, when if innocent, he could withdraw it easily, but if guilty, his hand became swollen to such an extent that he was held fast.

The following photo is of the altar inside the underground cell and dates my first visit to Aileach (1997). There was no sign of the stone handcuffs.

On the hillside above the monastery lay the heart of Aileach: the circular mound of Cladh Eithne, the grave of Eithne, the mother of St Columba. Ten feet in diameter, it is rimmed by stones and marked by two upright slabs, one incised with a simple cross. Hugh MacMillan (quoted earlier) gives the lineage of Eithne as ‘the daughter of Dima, son of Ner, descended from Cathaeir Mor, King of Leinster, and afterwards all of Ireland.’

Is it truly Eithne’s grave? Maybe, maybe not. Even if not, it is the burial site of someone important, someone whose tomb is marked by one of the two remaining cross-stones on the island. There were once many such stones here, but they’ve been stolen.

Sitting at Eithne's Grave, overlooking one of the oldest Christian sites in the Hebrides, I wondered if this was Columba's Hinba. Many books on the Hebrides state, some with complete certainty, that it is, but in The Celtic Placenames of Scotland (1926), William Watson makes a convincing argument it is not. Based on the few written clues about Hinba, he concludes it was likely Jura. A few of the clues are:

Clue 1: When Columba founded the monastery on Hinba, he placed his uncle Ernan in charge.
Ernan, Columba’s uncle, was one of the men who’d come with him from Ireland. On Jura, ten miles south of Columba’s Cell at Tarbert, is Cill Ernadail, the cell of St Ernan.

Clue 2: Hinba has a Muirbolc Mar, a large sea bay.
Aileach does not have a large bay. Jura’s Loch Tarbert is certainly large. It is a mile wide at its western mouth at Ruantallain, where you’ll find one of the most remote bothies in the Hebrides. From there, as you sail east, it quickly narrows to 300 feet at the raised beaches at Cumhann Mòr, the big narrows. It continues to cleave its way across Jura, at one point narrowing to 100 feet at Cumhann Beag. The loch ends a mile and a half farther west at a point a half mile from the Sound of Jura, where—and here is another clue that Jura could be Hinba—you’ll find the chapel and well of St Columba.

Clue 3: Hinba was on the sea lanes from Ireland to the monastic settlements of the Hebrides.
After crossing from Ireland to Islay, a direct route north would be to go with the strong tides up the Sound of Islay, where Loch Tarbert was just around the corner. Alternately, if it was stormy or the tides were not favourable, a route east would lead up the Sound of Jura to Tarbert Bay. Columba had a cell at Tarbert, and from there, it would be a short portage to transport currachs to Loch Tarbert. 

Clue 4: ‘Hinba’ may derive from the Old Irish word inbe, an incision or a great gap.
Loch Tarbert cuts a seven-mile-long incision into the west coast of Jura. If it went another half a mile, Jura would be two islands. Rising sea levels may make that a reality, as only a fifty-foot increase will flood the ‘Tarbert.’ The following photo shows the site of Columba's Chapel at Tarbert. It is a charming spot, and in springtime, blooming daffodils tint its edges a bright yellow.

The sparse trail of clues to the location of Hinba is a fascinating one. Jura sounds most likely, but we will never know for sure. That may be a good thing. It is a mystery that has led many of those seeking Hinba to the remote shores of na h-Eileacha Naomha, Jura, Scarba, Oronsay, Canna, and several other isles of the magic west: a seeking that, in its fulfilment, is a blessing handed down the centuries from Columba and Ernan.

When the time came to leave, Sally, Debbie, and I returned to St Columba's Well. Unfortunately, the tide had dropped, and the inlet was dry. That required us to scramble across the rocks to a spot where Colin could get close with the RIB. It was not easy, but it was exhilarating to safely slide into the RIB after a day ashore on St Brendan's Aileach. 

Leaving the Garvellachs in our wake, we set a course for the final island of the cruise: Easdale of the Slate Isles

Inchkenneth

After a night at anchor in Lon Bearnus, we set a course west to circle around Ulva and Gometra. With the always-tempting Treshnish isles dotting the horizon to the west, we made our way along the southern coast of Ulva. Once past the collonaded castles, we motored into the shallow waters between Inchkenneth and Mull. The anchor was set, and we loaded into the inflatable to seek a landing on St Kenneth's Isle.

The tide was low, and the reefs that pierce the sea meant we had to putter a mile to the south, where we went ashore on the sandy beach of Chapel Bay. From there, it was an easy climb to the chapel. 

The thirteenth-century chapel sits on the site of St Kenneth’s monastery. Three chapel walls still stand, but the south wall is mostly missing. Entering through a door in its north wall, we came across a collection of carved medieval tombstones. Two lancet windows in the east gable let the sun shine on the scant remains of an altar. James Boswell, writing in 1773, mentions the presence of a Celtic handbell on the altar. Unfortunately, it disappeared sometime in the last 200 years.

Above the chapel, set among the tombstones of the burial ground, is the Inchkenneth cross. It is made from a single piece of grey-blue slate with zigzag designs carved along its edges. The elegant ring-headed cross stands five feet tall and dates to the sixteenth century. Most of the decoration has worn off, but a pair of shears is still visible at the bottom of the shaft. Below them, and hardly discernible, is something with bristles, possibly a brush or comb. The significance of the shears and comb may come from their ceremonial use in cutting the tonsure.

Twenty years had passed since my first visit to Inchkenneth. Seeing the chapel, burial ground, and the elegant cross made me a bit nostalgic. It can be a bad idea to revisit a special place like this, as you risk marring a cherished memory. I would not have come back here on my own, but guiding people who’d never been there gave the visit a vastly different perspective. I was bringing a cherished memory to like-minded souls. The visit would not mar a memory but make a new one.

After a look at the well, its waters bubbling down to the sea, we climbed the hillside above Inchkenneth House. The house has quite a history. It was once the home to Harold Boulton, who was known for writing lyrics for The Skye Boat Song.  After that, it was a holiday home for the Mitfords. It is unlikely, but there is a rumour Hitler visited the island.

Near the high point, we came to a semi-circular enclosure containing a small bench. Twenty years ago, I was told by the fellow who managed the island for the Barlows (the current owners) that it was called Poets' Corner. No poets are buried here, but it is a spot that could inspire a verse or two.

Several famous folks found refuge on Inchkenneth, and all of them would have come to the corner to revel in the isolation. The corner deserves a poem from all visitors. Here’s a go:

In 1773, Boswell, and Johnson, too,

  Stood at Poets’ Corner to enjoy the view.

In 1930, came Harold Bolton, in the last years of life,

  He’d make the climb from the house, along with his loving wife.

Then there were the Mitford girls: Unity plus five,

  A sad fascist, she left, barely alive.

And rumors are afloat, that from a U-boat,

  Came a man named Adolf, too.

When the time came to leave, the tide had dropped several feet, which meant there was no way the inflatable could come ashore. And so we descended the short cliff to the kelp beach below the house, then made our way north across a beautiful, white-sand beach to a spot where the inflatable could come close. The boots had to come off, and it was a cold wade 100 feet out to where the RIB was barely afloat.

Under a gloriously blue Hebridean sky, we set off from Inchkenneth. The itinerary for the next day was exciting: Eileach an Naoimh of the Isles of the Sea, the site of St Brendan's Monastery.